Rumi

Rumi lived much of his life in Konya, then part of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia. His tomb there became the Mevlana Museum, a major site for readers and Sufi pilgrims.

The Masnavi is Rumi's long Persian spiritual poem, traditionally arranged in six books. It uses stories, parables, and Qur'anic allusions to teach Sufi ideas about love, discipline, and union with God.

Shams of Tabriz was the wandering mystic whose meeting with Rumi in the 1240s transformed Rumi's writing and spiritual practice. Rumi's Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi is named for him and includes many of Rumi's ecstatic lyric poems.

Not always. Many modern English versions, especially popular gift-book quotations, are loose adaptations rather than literal translations of 13th-century Persian poems.